by Mark Murphy
He didn't know how it happened, really. He was in the back of the ambulance, the oxygen bathing his face, looking absently at Ken as he fiddled with the knobs on the heart monitor, and then he closed his eyes just for a moment and there she was.
It was the youngJeannette King again, eyes full of life, before the mastectomy and the chemo, before the cancer had chewed up her bones and spit them out.
She was trying to talk to him. Her lips were moving, but no words seemed to come out.
"Mom? I can't hear you."
He could hear himself speaking. His voice was a child's voice again, but it didn't seem strange at all.
He ran to her.
They were in the old house, the white clapboard one with the fountain in the back. God, he'd forgotten how he loved that place! They had sold it when the medical bills got too high, and his mom had bought a condo, a soulless box that he had sold without regret when she died.
Mom's things were in a couple of boxes in Malcolm's attic at the Rose Dhu house. It was all that was left of her. He'd go up there every once in a while—less often now. It was like having a ghost in the house. The fact that she never knew Amy or Mimi made him so very sad that he simply chose to ignore it. It was easier to keep Jeannette boxed away.
In his dream, his mother embraced him, pulling him into her lap. He buried his face in her dark hair, inhaling her. There was that scent— lilacs, somehow. She always smelled like that.
"What is it, Mom?" he asked.
"How is your brother?" she said.
Malcolm looked at her, his eyebrows scrunched up.
"I don't have a brother."
She held his face between her hands. Her lips touched his cheek.
"Yes, you do," she said, stroking his hair.
There was a jolt and the dream ended suddenly, as if someone had thrown ice water in Malcolm's face.
"Sorry about that," Ken said. "A little bumpy going over the bridge."
A faint odor of lilac lingered in the air.
Ken was looking out of the porthole-type window on the side of the ambulance. He shook his head and grinned.
"Whooee! Jimmy just passed an eighteen-wheeler! He's driving like a bat out of hell tonight!"
"This is a good thing?" Malcolm said.
"Dr. King, when you're driving an emergency vehicle, this is a very good thing."
Malcolm closed his eyes, listening to the dit-dit-dit-dit of the heart monitor, feeling the thrum of the ambulance's engine in his chest. He realized, quite suddenly, that his entire body hurt—every bone, every joint, every muscle. Hell, even his skin hurt.
And his heart hurt, a little.
The hollow, burnt-out place left when his mother died had scabbed over long ago. He'd put those memories away, boxed them up and stowed them someplace safe.
But he'd forgotten how she always smelled of lilacs.
That scent, lingering after his dream, tore the scab right off.
He'd been the one who found her that morning, in the pale half-light of early morning.
She'd been very weak the night before. When he had kissed her goodnight her eyelids had fluttered a bit, a smile creasing her withered lips.
"I love you, Mal," she had said, her tired eyes gazing at her son one last time.
"Love you too, Mom," he had replied, stroking her cheek.
He had kissed her on the forehead and closed the door, closed it tight, not knowing that eternity was rushing in that very night.
He brought her breakfast the next morning—hot tea and a small bowl of steaming grits with butter. They were lightly salted, the way she liked them.
He knew she was gone the minute he saw her.
She seemed to have diminished even further in death, her emaciated body as insubstantial as smoke. He was relieved that the ordeal of her dying had finally ended, her pain gone. But the awful finality of her death was almost too much to face. It was a terrible, terrible wound.
The tears came freely, sobs convulsing his body, the pain tearing a hole in his soul.
He had lifted her lifeless body up in his arms, hugging her to him. It had seemed too light, hollow-boned, like a bird's.
The funeral at First Baptist had been huge—standing room only, people in the balcony and on the church steps. But Malcolm had buried her alone. He had wanted their last moments together to be private.
Malcolm had watched by himself as his mother's coffin was lowered into the ground. It was raining that day. He had kicked the mud off of his shoes as he got into the car and then drove away from Bonaventure Cemetery, never to return.
But what was it she had said in the dream?
How is your brother?
She had spoken of his brother once before. It was a terrible night about a month before she had died. She was feverish. Malcolm had carried her to the hospital and Gary German had told them that the cancer was everywhere, that there was nothing they could do. They had involved Hospice services and were going home one final time when she had said it.
"Your brother needs to know."
"Okay, Mom."
"Tell him, Malcolm. Let him know I'm sorry."
"Where can I find him, Mom?"
Her eyes filled with tears.
"I . . . I don't know. Maybe the playground."
"Okay, Mom. I'll check the playground."
He had dried her eyes and she'd drifted off to sleep, letting the morphine take her for a bit as they waited for patient transport to take her to the front of the hospital for one last trip home.
That was it. She'd never spoken of a brother before or since. Malcolm had chalked it up to delirium, to fever and narcotics and cancer. He was an only child—always had been. He'd have known if there was a brother someplace. There were no pictures of anyone but the three of them from the time he was a baby. In fact, most of the pictures were just of Malcolm and Jeannette, since Mal had been only four years old at the time of his dad's accident.
So why now?
Why did his mother mention a brother in his dream?
Perhaps it was all of the talk about Billy and his brother. Perhaps.
Who knew?
Malcolm had scarcely dozed back off again when he felt the deceleration of the ambulance taking the off ramp from the parkway, its sirens off at last. Ken rustled around in the ambulance, getting things together, and then they were backing up and the doors opened and Malcolm was brought into the ER in a rush of light and sound that seemed like a wave washing over him, tumbling him end over end as a thousand faces flashed in front of him like ghosts. He knew them and he knew them not.
A familiar visage materialized, blurry through the fogged plastic of the oxygen mask.
Malcolm was relieved to see Brad Sims's goofy jumble-toothed grin.
"Hey, man. Glad to see you're okay. We'll get ya taken care of." Brad took the clipboard and pointed over to the corner of the ER. "Trauma Two's open. Put Dr. King over there. And get him set up pronto."
Brad turned back to Malcolm.
"Amy and Mimi are here. They're fine. I'm getting ready to send them out. The police said they can take them home. You feel up to talking to them?"
Malcolm nodded.
"Of course."
Mimi and Amy looked surprisingly good. Malcolm took off the oxygen mask, propping it on top of his head. They took turns kissing him.
"How is it that you look worse now than you did on Tybee?" Amy asked.
Malcolm shrugged.
"Miracles of modern medicine," he said.
"We're both fine," said Mimi.
"So I heard."
"We're going to stay with you," said Amy.
"Absolutely not," said Malcolm.
"But we're together. I've missed you," said Amy.
"You know I've missed the two of y'all. But you're both exhausted. Technically, because I was in a car accident, I'm a trauma patient, so they've got to run the whole MVA trauma protocol drill. It'll be a couple of hours. There's no need for you to sit around here for that. You guys
go on back to the house, get washed up and get some rest. I'll get someone here to drive me home when they're done."
Amy shook her head.
"I'm staying. No way I'm leaving you right now."
"Ames, listen. Daisy was shot by Birkenstock earlier. When I left her, she seemed okay, but we need to check on her."
"Mal . . ."
"Amy, I will be home soon, I promise. You guys need to go home, check on the dog, get washed up, and I'll be right behind you."
Amy bit her lip, staring at Malcolm. Tears filled her eyes.
"You're sure?" she asked at last.
Malcolm grasped her hand in his.
"Go home. I'm fine. I'll be with you guys at Rose Dhu before you know it."
Amy's lip was trembling. She looked as though she was about to implode, just collapse in on herself.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you, too. Both of you."
"You're okay?"
"I'm great. Really."
Amy and Mimi both kissed him again and a patrolman took them away. Malcolm watched them as the ER loading dock doors opened and closed around them. He dared not tell them how he wanted to just hold them, just hug them tightly to him and not ever let them go.
That would be selfish, Malcolm, he thought.
Letting them go was the right decision, he knew, and he had to be firm or they would have stayed all night. But they were barely out of sight before he missed them already.
The next hour or so was a whirlwind of X-rays and blood draws. Malcolm was painfully aware of how this all worked, but he had never experienced it from this perspective.
I suppose this will make me a better doctor, he thought, but the reality of it all was that he really didn't give a shit. He just wanted it all to be over. He wanted to go home and sit on the back porch with his wife and daughter and drink a glass of iced tea while the shorebirds came in to roost. He wanted to make love to his wife, as tired as he was, just because he needed to feel her sweet warmth against his own.
Brad Sims came in with an iPad—one of the new ones with a big high-res screen—clutched in one hand. A pair of half-rimmed reading glasses were perched on the end of his nose. They were attached to a lanyard draped around his neck.
"Your films look good," he said, holding the iPad up for Malcolm to see. "No fractures. Labs should be back in half an hour or so. If they check out, you'll be free to go."
"That's great."
"Hey, I was glad to hear your buddy got extubated," Brad said, taking his glasses off.
"What buddy?"
"That guy you called me about. The cop that got shot. Ben what's-his-name."
"Ben Adams? He's off the vent?"
Brad nodded.
"They moved him to the floor yesterday. He's doing great. You saved his life."
"Brad?"
"Um-hmm."
"Could somebody take me to see him while we're waiting on my labs?"
"No problem. I'll get one of the techs to wheel you up."
Brad put the half-rimmed glasses back on and looked at the iPad again.
"He's in . . . ah, here he is. 522."
"Thanks. And the reading glasses—those new?" Malcolm said.
Brad grinned.
"Father Time waits for no man, my friend," Brad said, gray eyes peering over the tops of the glasses.
He tipped the iPad at Malcolm in a half-assed salute, rubbed his long fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair and ambled back into the melee of the ER.
The ER tech was a girl. This was a surprise—most of the techs were dudes, adrenaline junkies, often ex-military and usually ripped to the max. They biked and they surfed and shot wild animals in their spare time.
Her nametag said China. She was compact, vaguely Asian. There was a tattoo of a dragon curling around her right forearm. Fire and smoke blew in swirls of ink from its flared nostrils.
"You're Dr. King, aren't you?" she said, locking the wheelchair.
"I am."
"You kill those folks?"
"I didn't. You'll see it in the paper tomorrow. It was somebody else."
"I don't read the paper. But I knew you didn't do it. Didn't seem like you."
"Do you know me?"
She smiled.
"We all do, Dr. King. Sometimes y'all look right through us. Especially the chicks. You talk with the guys about guy stuff, but I rarely speak to any of the surgeons, except maybe the residents. I hang out with some of them sometimes. But the attendings? Never."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. We don't expect it. You guys have a lot going on. It gets crazy down here."
She patted the back of the wheelchair with a slim hand.
"Have a seat," she said.
Malcolm did as he was told.
"Anyway, I'm starting med school here in the fall," she said.
"Congratulations . . . China? Is that your name?"
"Nickname. My real name's Gum Ying, but that just sounds too out there, like something in a martial arts movie. My friends in high school started calling me 'China,' and it stuck. It's not official, but it works here."
"What's your last name, China?"
She snorted, suppressing a laugh.
"Jones," she said, unlocking the wheelchair.
"China Jones? For real?"
"I'm an army brat. My dad was stationed in Taiwan and married a Chinese girl. They had me, but Dad got transferred back to Hunter AAFB here in Savannah. Mom and Dad broke up a few years after we moved here, Dad got reassigned to Germany, and Mom high-tailed it back to Taiwan. I liked it here and was tired of moving, and I was eighteen by then, so I just stayed here in Savannah. I'm ChinaJones, for real."
She started pushing the wheelchair down the hall.
"Where are we headed?"
"522."
"That's that cop's room. Ben Adams, right?"
"Yep."
"I was here the night they brought him in. Damn near died. Dr. Sims said you saved his life."
"Dr. Sims saved his life. I just called it in."
"The cops were looking for you then, weren't they?"
"They were."
"That's when I knew for sure you couldn't be guilty. No serial killer would take that risk."
"Ben's an old friend. We go way back," said Malcolm. "I'd do anything for him."
They boarded the patient elevator. China leaned over and pushed the button marked 5.
China settled against the elevator wall and glanced at her phone.
"It's hitting the Internet. Says they caught the killer, and that it wasn't you."
She looked up.
"Says here that this guy was a surgeon at UAB? Guy named Joel Birkenstock?" she said.
"They have all that already?" Malcolm said. "It's only been a couple of hours."
China waggled the smart phone.
"And that's why I don't read the paper," she said.
The doors opened onto the fifth floor.
Room 522 had two large-bodied uniformed policemen hunkered down in chairs that their bodies had eclipsed so completely that they appeared to be levitating in sitting positions. Their blue-black sidearms gleamed dully in the fluorescent lighting.
China wheeled Malcolm up to the door.
The two supersized cops stood up, blocking the doorway like a couple of NFL linemen.
"I've come to see Ben Adams," he said.
"There's no one here by that name," one of the cops said.
"I'm a friend," Malcolm said.
"No visitors."
"Ah, let that sorry sonofabitch in," said a voice from inside the room.
Malcolm grinned.
The two cops glanced at each other.
"I guess it's okay if he says so," one of the giants said to the other.
They stood aside. China wheeled Malcolm into the room.
Ben was lying in bed. He looked thin and old, his blond hair unkempt and streaked with gray. He had a chest tube canister percolating on the floor beside him. But his eye
s were still the same brilliant aquamarine they had always been.
"I guess this means they aren't hunting you down anymore," Ben said.
"Word travels fast," Malcolm said.
Ben pointed to the TV.
"CNN," he said.
China held the wheelchair as Malcolm stood up. He leaned over Ben and hugged him. Ben was thin. The chest tube tugged against the bed rail.
"Ow, dude! That hurts!" Ben said.
"I'm sorry," Malcolm said.
Ben shot a sheepish glance at him.
"I'm the one who needs to apologize to you," Ben said. "I should have known better than to think you might be a serial killer."
"Ben, I know you. You were just trying to do your job, and you had some false information that you were acting on. Billy told me all about it. So there's no need . . ."
"Just hear me out, Mal. I should have known better. I know you better than anyone, except maybe Amy and Mimi, and I should not have suspected you. I thought I had a conflict between my duty as a cop and my friendship with you, and I let you down. I'm sorry. The minute that guy pulled the gun on me, I realized what a fool I'd been."
"If you thought I was guilty, why did you warn me when they were coming to my house to get me?"
Ben shook his head.
"I didn't want them to take you in—not then, not like that. I figured if you got away you and I might be able to work something out that would not be quite so traumatic for Amy and Mimi. I owed you that much, no matter what happened. And I had promised to take care of the girls for you, you know, and . . . it's . . ."
Tears filled Ben's eyes.
"I'm sorry, Mal. I suck as a friend."
"Ben, it's okay. Really."
"We promised to look out for each other and I failed you."
"I'm fine. The girls are fine. We're cool, man. I promise. All's well that ends well," said Malcolm.
Ben dried his eyes with the sheet.
"You know you're like a brother to me. My only brother, in fact. All I have in this world," he said.
"Blood brothers, remember?" Malcolm said, holding his wrist up to Ben's.
Ben held his wrist, IV and all, up to Malcolm's.
"Blood brothers," he said.
The door cracked a bit. One of the Big'N'Hearty twins stuck a hubcap-sized head in the door.
"Detective Adams?"
"Yes?"
"I've been asked to notify you of something. Could we speak privately for a minute? Captain's orders," he said.